Materials Science and Engineering!? (1 Viewer)

[awestie66]

I thought i had what i was going to do next year all worked out, ie doing Chemical Engineering/ Biomedical Engineering, until i was offered a scholarship for Materials Science and Engineering/ Biomedical Engineering.
Now im trying to work out how the two would differ...
Im pretty keen on chemistry and maths. And i was happy with Chemical Engineering, because of the diversity of different pathways you can take after graduating.
Any one in the any position to offer some advice about material science and engineering??

 

[Omie Jay]

Well what exactly do you wanna know about it?

Chemistry and materials science similar in the sense that they both deal with elements and their reactions with other elements, but chemistry is more atomically focusses, dealing with elements and their chemical bonds and electron transfer and ionisation and etc.
Materials science has a more micro/macroscopic focus. Instead of dealing with elements at the atomic level, you learn more about how melting and combining different elements produces certain qualities in the final product. For example, you'd learn about steels and their carbon content and how that affects the hardness/toughness/brittleness of the steel, 2% or more carbon content means it becomes cast iron, which has good hardness properties (or was it toughness..) but are brittle, whereas <2% carbon and the addition of chromium and possibly others turns it into stainless steel which is less brittle.
Then you'd learn about phase diagrams and alpha/beta stages (or something), and microscopic crystalline structures of metal compounds, and then you'd learn about ceramics and their properties, and maybe polymers too.

I just ranted about the very basic difference between chemistry and materials science, so maybe you now have an idea of how they differ.

If that didnt provide what you're looking for, then see the unsw handbook page for materials science/biomed engineering (here: http://www.handbook.unsw.edu.au/undergraduate/programs/2010/3138.html), call up your faculty, and post more questions here

 

[annabackwards]

Omie knows what he's on about, so i'd listen to him

 

[Ostentatious]

omie knows what he's on about, so i'd listen to him

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